” My grandfather told me…”to accomplish anything worthwhile, you must pay the price.” My dad taught me that nothing in life would come easy. That I would have to work for those things that I wanted. But work cannot be narrowly defined in only a physical sense. Work is also a mental, emotional and spiritual endeavor as well.
As I grew up, I also came to learn and appreciate that achievement, excellence and success is not a matter of destiny, fate, timing or being in the right place at the right time. For that would mean that we live by chance rather than being guided by intention. To live solely by chance would negate the value and virtue of our effort and commitment. Our perseverance and sacrifice. And ultimately, our purpose.
I learned that in order to “be” or “become” – you needed to intend to “be” or “become”. To be purposeful in your thoughts, words and deeds. I found that to live with intention – and intentionally – is to be guided by purpose.
There will always be a price to pay if you live with intention. If you are purposeful in all that you do. You will have to “give up” to “go up”. You will need to leave some of who and what you “are” behind in order to get to where you want to go. To become what and who you want to be requires sacrifice. And this isn’t easy.
I can assure you that the suffering you encounter along the way – whether physical, mental, emotional or spiritual in nature – will be temporary. You are simply giving up comfort, familiarity and the certain in order to press ahead, grow and become what you were intended to be.
You are “trading up”. And after all, wasn’t that your intention? ”
In order to acquire self mastery, you first need to employ self-discipline.
Once on the path to self mastery, your opportunities will multiply. You will be working from a foundation built for achievement, the pursuit of excellence and eventually – success.
Yet mastery of self is entirely and exclusively reliant on your attitude.
A positive attitude will provide you with safe passage. It prevents you from treading down an ever slippery slope of largely self induced emotional blackmail. It guards you from living down to low expectations. Protects you from acquiescing to the laws of just being average. Settling for whatever happens to come your way.
If you neglect to master your attitude first – you run the risk of limiting or losing the potential that exists in you; in that moment and in the future.
A lack of vigilance when it comes to your attitude can turn you against yourself.
Pitting opportunity against expediency.
You can become your own worst enemy. Choosing the easy way out.
A route that has led many to react rather than respond.
A decision to let emotion and pride rule the day. A poor attitude can and will run roughshod over your talents and aspirations before you even know it.
Especially when it comes to responding to even the smallest bit of adversity.
It can happen in an instant, perhaps in a sequence that goes something like this:
“Crap.
Why me?
Why can’t anything ever be easy, or work the way I want it to?
Why does this always happen to me?
When am I going to catch a break.
I cannot do this any more.
I wish I was somewhere else.
Why can’t this day be over?“
You see what can happen in the span of about 60 seconds?
You can react and send yourself plummeting off the deep end to drown in self pity, defeatism and despair. Yet if you can find it in yourself to respond, to be positive, you could end up carrying that same load in this fashion:
“Wow!
A challenge made just for me.
A chance to test myself again!
I must get all of these opportunities because I can handle them.
When this one is over, I hope I get another chance to reveal my character.
Semantics, marketing and social media trends seem to somehow rule each day. It might be something oriented to draw out the athlete hidden deep within us. Maybe it is a phrase intended to bring out the leader that resides next to that athlete. Perhaps it is self defense tactics involving toxic environments and others. Or, a call to reveal one’s true character.
Now there isn’t anything off about any of these approaches. Not that they do not have relevance, sustainability or the potential for permanence. There is value to each and everyone. From my perspective, it is just that for some reason they appear to be targeted to a very specific group. And as such, the potential impact of what is being presented, said and promoted becomes so focused on one thing, that other ancillary concerns and needs are totally missed.
So as a football coach a year ago, E + R = O was presented to the program. At first glance, some apparent math equation that in our circumstance happened to be geared towards our game and conduct within it. But then, I came across this approach within some of the corporate social media I read and write about. And even more so in things that involve leadership, character, achievement.
You name it, Mr. Kight’s foundation for making the life you choose is everywhere
But now, I have started to see it from an entirely different perspective.
You can gear up things that apply to very specific targets. To become known for a prowess that speaks to a very specific audience. Perhaps some KPI. Or, since you have developed these tactics that have the potential to embrace a much wider group, perhaps it can be presented as that first, then as a dollar oriented approach.
The event plus response equals outcome viewpoint literally applies to all aspects of life. Not just athletics, business, self improvement or any other interest of the moment.
It goes far deeper than all the above.
Imagine you encounter an event in your life that beckons an urgent response. Maybe it is a health issue. A relationship challenge. Spiritual collapse. Alcohol or drug abuse. A self destructive behavior you somehow made your own. Loneliness.
All in their own right, entities not designed to fit a marketing driven collection of buzz words, phrases and such designed to attract likes, clicks and impressions. But rather, to fit into something with an altogether different gravity and mass.
An event you now face, plus the response you choose to make and how that will eventually create the outcome sought.
We all face them. We all need to respond accordingly. And then, we need to either accept the outcome, go back and amend our response and continue this assessment until the event has been overcome.
Or just accept things and call in the dogs.
Events are never trumpeted, announced or heralded. Well, not usually. And the tenor of these occurrences should not determine the fealty of the way things are encountered, embraced or enjoined.
We need merely to respond in a fashion that produces what we ultimately desire to achieve.
Whether we acknowledge it or not.
So, while an event prescribes a certain response, it may not be within our grasp to do so at this moment. It may be timing, circumstance, presence, placement or an unwillingness to accept the need for change. A stubbornness born of seeing things through your well worn rose colored specs.
Though response to an event will ultimately equate to an outcome, events and responses may be ill equipped to produce if not properly discerned, honestly approached and embraced with an element of surrender.
If you can somehow adhere to this equation at this level, all other situations will follow suit, providing the genuine, warranted and desired outcome.
Remain present in the event. Be honest with yourself about the response that is required.
When we “let it be”, we give our consent to allow things to play out.
This isn’t to say that we ever had the ultimate authority in these matters. We just like to think that we do. To “let it be” is an admission that we need to step back, defer our assumed jurisdiction and grant Him the opportunity to work things out. After all, His plans DO take precedence.
Once we can admit that personal command can be elusive and control is tenuous at best, we can cease and desist, cede our alleged authority, and let His will be done.
Regardless of the high praise we deem for our abilities, the importance we assign to our desires or the confidence we hold in the righteousness of our position, to “let go” assures us that we have correctly ordered our priorities and recognized our proper role.
At its core, to “let go” is choosing our surrender.
It is an acknowledgement that His loving order of things, “works best for us.”
As we endeavor to make the transition towards this “happy place”, less of our emotional and spiritual energy will be consumed on the superficial, transient and the petty.
We can conserve our precious personal resources. Create a reserve. And begin to reallocate it in another direction: outward. Once we reach this point, we can afford to “give it up”.
With less personal control and even surrender, things should spiral out of orbit – right? On the contrary; less sovereignty in this respect leads to greater independence, stability and well-being.
Control becomes an extension of our ego, and when left unchecked, has the potential to work against us – and – the greater good.
An ego run amok will falsely inflate our self-esteem. It will crowd out humility, creating within us a bogus sense of self-importance and security. It can become a very demanding companion.
For once you let it come to the table, it will remain there, begging to be fed.
Always desperate for attention, ego can enjoin us to perform all sorts of interpersonal gymnastics, cultivate manipulative behaviors and help perfect dishonesty. This is an exhausting and empty exercise.
When we learn to “let it be” and then find the courage to “let go”, we set ourselves on a trajectory towards the emotionally and spiritually fulfilling growth that can only be found when we “give it up”.
Abandoning our preoccupation with control and employing our innate humility to rein in ego, we can gain an essential element of independence.
No longer beholden to the transience of these self-made and self-destructive adversaries, we find our true center. With our overall sense of balance restored, and an enhanced sense of well-being imminent, we are positioned to give up more of our personal resources; our ‘self’.
As we can learn to syncopate our lives – altering its rhythm by putting the accent on thoughts, words and deeds not usually emphasized – we become attuned to an entirely different melody.
No longer distracted by our illusions of command and control or driven solely by ego, we have the opportunity to fulfill our potential and maximize our talents to a level that can only be achieved by openly sharing our abilities.
To “give it up”, is to share who and what we are in total, bringing light to places long kept dark, both within and without.
Once this path has been illuminated, it can lead us toward a lasting and positive personal transformation. By freeing our “selves” from our self-centered constraints, we gain true independence.
If only you can follow His gentle tug.
The more we allow ourselves to follow that pull, the more we recognize that it is where we were meant to be all along.
When we “give it up”, we shine the beacon of our better nature everywhere we go. Though we might start as but one point of light, over time, our radiance soon brings out the brilliance in others.
Our gift to them – “giving it up” – can become their gift of “giving it up” to others.
Only when we recognize these personal barriers – the ones that separate us from our gifts and from giving them fully to others – can they be dismantled and removed.
We can transform our lives and those around us when we become less concerned with control, no longer held captive by our ego. Absolved of maintaining such a high level of vigilance over our “selves”, we preserve more energy and retain more freedom to simply “be”.
When we can “give it up”, sharing more of what and who we are with others, our true “self” generates its own gravitational pull.
Just as we feel a gentle pull towards Him, others feel the gentle pull towards us.
The greater the orbit we allow our “selves” to venture into, while maintaining our synchronous orbit about Him, the more we are able to reveal the best that is in us, encouraging others to do the same.
All the good things in life He wants for us that can only come from “giving it up”.
“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”
Henry David Thoreau
Perhaps you find yourself at a crossroads. And by gaining a sense of this, feeling its tug and gaining an awareness of gravity, do you regroup? Engage in a course correction? Some element of self transformation?
Consider how the mass of your collective thoughts, words and deeds have led you to this instant. How they came to impact oneself. Make you something. Leading you somewhere.
They all matter. And even now, in this moment, both they and you are still being shaped.
Taking all that you have been up to now and making you into what you are to become. The embodiment of all that is the best in you; character, excellence, perseverance and leadership.
Your intentions can finally and irrevocably become reality. A convergence of age, ability, experience. The confluence of discipline, desire and dreams.
In something altogether new. That will stand alone and the test of time. That will never happen precisely in this fashion ever again.
Long ago, you may have entertained the smallest germ of a thought. A glimmer of a dream.
At that moment, you decided. You chose a destination.
A path was needed. Direction determined. A pace to be set.
So you let go. Abandoned yourself, while exerting the will to expend yourself in all aspects of your being. Succumbing to a level of self- discipline that ultimately created this extraordinary circumstance.
Creating a singular vision, originating from a common perspective. Led by the thoughts we chose to dominate our life. Following the deep mental path we walked along and through.
Guiding us to who, what and where we always imagined.
...my temporary assignment. 